MAKE SURE THERE IS A NEED

We had our first project planning session on Monday…just the nine of us, no one to make sure we were doing the right thing! In a way it was quite nice to get out of OYAP and what has become a very safe little hub to create hair brained ideas, and in to a not so nice room at Brooks. It seemed to be the beginning of a journey we were going to have to make alone!

We talked through ideas some of us had come up with about projects we would like to ideally run, and sort of discovered through discussion that actually some of these projects there was absolutely no NEED for! A project has no purpose if there is not an initial and very important need, and therefore will not be useful and probably in that case successful, nor will anyone be interested in participating in it, and so it would never secure the all important funding!

From this I have learnt that securing a need, but not letting your ideas and concepts become too twisted by funding criteria is SO important. You must speak to the possible participants before you get too excited about a possible project. They have got to think it’s pretty dam good, and also VERY cool, or they are just not going to turn up!…and that’s not fun for anyone.

Oyap so far this year!

As a new year begins the busy times start to show up again! Our first training session of the year went very well. Our day started off with a self promotion talk from Scott Cridland-Smith. His talk was very informative and he was approachable enough for us to feel like we could ask as many questions as we wanted. The talk itself was accompanied by a powerpoint presentation and was centered around how to promote yourself on the internet. How to set up your own website, get your blog seen etc.. I learned a lot and was glad not to have missed out! It’s been one of my favourite sessions so far.

In the afternoon we had Pete Mosley come in. He is OYAP’s evaluator and runs a company called Art of Work. This initial meeting with him was very helpful. He was also very approachable and offered to help and guide us in the future when it comes to our projects and working in the arts. It’s always good to know there is a support system around us, it gives us some confidence in what we’re doing.

On Monday, all of us young leaders had a meeting at Oxford Brookes University. I was productive but I feel we need more discussions like that one. It was very good to hear people’s ideas and the challenge will now be to see what is achievable and to see what we will be allocated. Tomorrow, I get to meet my mentor for the first time, Sharon Woodward. I am very curious to see what comes out of this meeting. I’ve been really looking forward to it.

This year has started off well and I predict we will see a lot of progress in the weeks to come. Busy times ahead!

The Fun Raiser

Last night, I volunteered at an event organised by OYAP. The Fun Raiser 2010, an evening of comedy in the aim to raise awareness and money for the charity. Some of the volunteers and myself started off by going out and handing flyers. It was interesting to see people’s reactions. Some people avoided us, some people didn’t really care and others were actually interested and asked questions. After handing out some flyers, we went back to the venue. What a beautiful venue! The Sheldonian theatre is simply stunning. It is such a grand building, with wonderful acoustics. I’ve helped at a couple of events at this venue and I have always loved the acoustics in there.

When we got to the venue Liz McCaffry, OYAP‘s general manager, gave us a quick briefing of what our tasks were. I was on box office with Caroline and Becca and the others were stewarding. Being on box office was nice. I always like seeing all the faces coming in. Seeing what kind of people come to events like this. It was good to see some people came because of the leaflets we had handed out just a couple of hours earlier. A lovely lady also told us she came to the event because she heard about it on the radio! She was the first one there she must have been really keen! I hope she had a good laugh. Everything on box office went according to plan, there were no problems and everything went smoothly. We also sold lots of raffle tickets which was great.

We then sat down to enjoy the show. Huw Thomas was our host for the evening. I really liked him!.He did a really good job at getting the audience involved and getting us in the mood for big giggles. The acts of the evening were Otiz Cannelonni, Mark Maier, Steve Best and Rob Deering. My personal favourite was the last act, Rob Deering. He was hilarious and I loved his singing. Steve Best confused me more than anything. I was thinking “what is going on here….” but then again, he made me laugh a lot! All in all, I’m very happy I got to be part of it even if it was helping in a small way. It was nice seeing the crowd have such a good time. It was also a good opportunity to mingle and meet new people.

At the end of the event we had a lovely group photo taken and packed up. Then went off to the pub! What a great evening. I look forward to many more events with OYAP.

Thanks you to all that helped and thank you to OYAP for putting in such an awsome event

http://sarahprojects.wordpress.com/

chatterboxing turns to action plans!

As I said last time, I have been working on painting last week – above is the draft of the painting I am working on at the moment, a visualisation of the song ‘Velvet’ by The Big Pink… it has changed a lot in transfer from paper to canvas, check out my elliespace blog soon to see the results: http://ellie360@blogspot.com

I have been putting quite a lot out there at the moment including thoughts and drafts as well as finished pieces.. I think there is strong argument for artists to be open and inclusive about their artistic process, especially if they are looking for collaberation, and I feel keen to unravel things to connect people to my work, all part of the idea that art should be open to response rather than inaccessible – I would really love to know what other artists think about this …

Speaking of what other artists think, we met with Tara from Fusion (www.fusion-arts.org) Director of Oxford’s Community Arts Centre, who told us about where her practice has taken her (from running puppet workshops all around Newcastle to being arts director for an entire city in Pheonix, a pretty amazing journey!) and chatted to us about our YAK SHACK project.  Fusion are also launching a project in an empty shop, aiming to explore and celebrate the rich history of Cowley and the people that live there; it sounds like a perfect opportunity to explore also the connection between art and self expression and identity, such fundamental things in life and things that are obviously central to young people and their way of thinking… it all links back to previous thoughts on how to get young people involved in heritage. I have my thinking cap on, I would really like to be involved in some way …

On the subject of young people’s way of thinking, we have a really clear vision now of what we know want to do with our YAK SHACK venture, to provide a platform for young visual artists and musicians who are crying out for places to exhibit and perform. The shop itself will act as a centre for exhibition and performance, and we (Zarah, James, Becca and I) will as a collective explore how we can facilitate workshops to encourage young people who need to confidence to take their work and talent to the next level, and encourage in turn the development of an artistic community led by young people, for young people. In a way, rather than saying young people should be given access to the arts, I would say young people should be given a chance to reclaim their art for themselves ….

+

I have decided that the arts glass is half full. Positivity, it seems, breeds positivity in the arts sphere. Becca and I gave a presentation of our work investigating heritage sites from a young person’s perspective to the Heritage Lottery Fund South East Committe the week before last, and even though it was a short experience it was a bit of a corner turn; talking to people with a combination of honesty and positivity creates a connection between different arts arenas, and from this the seeds of the most exciting ideas are born. Yes, we know that ‘heritage’ is not at the top of most 12 – 25 year old’s list of interests; the positive is, as was demostrated by the presentation by Helen and Jo on the ‘Portrait of a Nation’ project which happened a couple of years back, when you give young people the chance to dictate the way they want to explore an aspect of their own heritage the creative results can be explosively amazing! The ideas that young people come up with during these kinds of opportunities and explorations are truly remarkable, as much an expression of themselves as of heritage; the DVD which charted the Oxford group’s journey with Portrait of a Nation could not have been a better example. And when you think about it, who could better give a fresh persepective on history than the younger generation of thinkers? Who could better bring history back to life? And isn’t that the essence of what makes history so remarkable? Let young people take their descovery of heritage in the directions they want, and let them descover and express their thoughts through the mediums they really connect with: dance, art, theatre, music, comedy even…. The feedback we got from this meeting was so encouraging, and now we are all fired up to hopefully get a project off the ground later in the year which can bring local young people and heritage together.  So many ideas are buzzing about right now…

On this note of positivity, excitement is barely containable over our own project – we are running with the idea of trying to create a space in the local area which can be a hub for the young budding creatives of the local area; it is something we are all really passionate about, and that is now translating into energy and action! Gallery space for young people wanting to get their work out there is my mission, and having a space to experiment with some more ‘out of the box’ ideas: i’m thinking new interpretations of texts, exploration of writting and poetry through responsive art work (theatre and visual medium), breaking down some of the boundaries of ‘conventional learning’ which have frustrated me and which I really beleive turn off so many other young people. Its ambition and ideas at the moment, but then again, looking at that positive, it seems to us like a preety good place to be starting from….

The Waiting Game – a new lesson.

Lessons handed down from high

Items to bullet, point and note

Listen carefully, watch and poise

A lesson learned, is a lesson earned.

I am at a point in my escapades where I am having to balance waiting, patients and following up.  From What I can tell, this balancing act will form much of my career.

Practice makes perfect I guess.

I have started work on an Intergenerational project and I am just starting the planning stage which requires communicating between a couple of different partners and stakeholders which are due to multiply very soon.

I am also waiting for interviews for a government ‘Homeshare’ scheme that will give me a roof over my head which isn’t a favour from a friend.

I am waiting for, well, a lot of things.

The scary thing is that while I am waiting for time to pass I am often forgetting about the important things that I should be doing in this time.

A difficult game. A tricky lesson to learn.

Life can be like treacle

Hello,

Just a quick one.

Our HLF project is finished. We are just waiting for the film and vlogs to be finished. Now it’s onto the training, mentoring, projects, challenging, pushing, testing, sweating, crying, wringing hands, blushing, standing up and fighting it out process.

Because of my background, I am painfully aware that people make judgements all of the time. Perhaps, I could be brave enough here to say that I can be a little paranoid and sensitive to other people’s opinions. This makes it feel quite hard to stand up on my own as a leader but it has never stopped me leading. It will never stop me leading in what I believe in.

Our first training session focussed on the all important subject of networking. Networking – fairly easy when I know all of the details. When I am 100% sure. A large part of the mentoring process for me is to pin-point some of those details. I know what I want to do with my life and the things that are important to me but I couldn’t sit down and say that I wanted my work to end poverty or to plant a tree every 10ft. For me, not knowing those details makes the idea of networking seem quite ambiguous.

This was case and point for me when I went to the public consultation for the new plans on Oxford Fire Station (If you have any advice please read and comment on beccart.wordpress.com).

Something that I do want to ask any/all of you. I went to the public consultation not only to investigate networking but also to ‘form an opinion’ as part of my Gold Arts Award. It would be really helpful to know what you think of the plans.

http://bit.ly/bSKiYv